› added 6 years ago

217

TIL that airplane runway numbers have to sometimes be repainted since they are based on Earth's magnetic north, which is constantly shifting.

Read more wired.com

via reddit.com

YZGZ TIL that when CS Lewis went to an elite English boarding school in 1913, he found that homosexual relationships among students were “not [frowned upon as seriously as] wearing one’s coat unbuttoned.”
lo6BA TIL that Star Trek's William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols performed the first interracial kiss on TV. At the time polls showed that fewer than 20 percent of Americans agreed with interracial relationships.
VBllk TIL that due to the polio virus, as of 1959 there were a total of 1200 people permanently confined to an 'Iron Lung', a device which mimics the breathing motion of the body using variable pressure leaving the patient with only their head exposed. As of 2017, there are still 3.
ebB5 TIL Northern Paper Company offered the first splinter-free toilet paper in the early 1930s.
1br8 TIL hiding backwards messages in music is banned in California.